


Death, Marriage, and Other Aphrodisiacs

by ACakes



Series: Death, Marriage, and Other Aphrodisiacs [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining John Watson, Pining Sherlock Holmes, Post-Reichenbach, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22886485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACakes/pseuds/ACakes
Summary: A discussion of impending death and skulls—specifically John’s—has unanticipated consequences for the boys of 221b.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Death, Marriage, and Other Aphrodisiacs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645114
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97





	Death, Marriage, and Other Aphrodisiacs

“I love you” Sherlock wants to say to John’s bowed sandy head. He wants to whisper into those follicles, imbue the knowledge of Sherlock’s love in every single cell within John. He wants the mitochondria to operate more efficiently because Sherlock is willing them to.

Instead what he says is this:

“John, it is statistically more likely that you will die first.” He does not say that these particular statistics fill him with a dull dread. He thinks it is rather magnanimous, actually, to allow John to die first this time—he knows he will never be forgiven for the two years they lost when Sherlock was “dead”. He doubts very much that he’d survive long without John in any case—Sherlock is the weaker of the two and terrible at taking care of his transport.

Sentimentally, he also very much doubts that the vacuous, screaming, John-shaped void in the world would not spontaneously swallow Sherlock whole. When he can’t sleep, he often comforts himself that the balance of probability has them both expiring rather dramatically side by side, given The Work.

“Mhmm, if we can keep you away from those nicotine patches…” John says absently, working on the blog and perched in his chair. He is wearing his hideous oatmeal jumper, the one that turns John into approximately 10 differing shades of beige. It washes him out, as Connie Prince would say.

“That being the case, I have a request,” Sherlock ventures.

“Hmm?”

“If you die first, which is more likely as we’ve established, may I have your skull?”

This gets John’s attention, and he meets Sherlock’s gaze where he is draped along the couch. Sherlock tilts his head towards him obligingly. If he survived John’s absence, he thinks that he’d like to trace John’s bare zygomatic arch, and whisper to him about cases.

“No experiments on it,” John says

“No experiments, John,” Sherlock says, sensing that John is wavering “I’d like to replace that one.” He gestures to the skull on the mantle that he once termed a “friend”. It has been quiescent since John entered his life. John eyes the skull on the mantle with something like bemused jealousy.

“Will you tell people that I have replaced your friend?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I have one friend, John. Don’t make me repeat things. Dull”

“Fine, then.” John says comfortably. “But you cannot put bits of me in the fridge”

That does seem fair, Sherlock allows. Still, he has gotten more than he thought…

“Can I have your hands?” He pictures the metatarsals, the familiar pads, chilled by the crisper drawer. The whorls and ridges of his finger prints would gather moisture in the cold. Perhaps not. John did so prefer to be warm.

John meets his gaze, and the blue eyes are a little exasperated now.

“Tell you what,” he says. “If, as we’ve established is more likely, I die first, you can have anything of me you want.” His tone is sharp and dry now. Mycroft would serve his tone with a buttery fish.

“Anything John?”

“Sherlock! You can talk to my damned solicitor—I’ve already told him to give you everything of mine.”

Sherlock sucks in a startled breath, and John seems to reel with what he’s admitted to. Sherlock does not say that he is touched, that his chest suddenly feels warm and expansive enough to bury John in entirely.

“Who would want your extensive collection of jumpers, John? Even the local nesting birds might disdain some of them.”

John tries on a frown, which disappears when giggles break loose instead. Sherlock smiles. Then John does something odd—he is always capable of surprising Sherlock. He sets the laptop aside, and suddenly, John’s face is open, raw, vulnerable. His expression is more naked than Sherlock has ever seen it.

“Right. Since we’re having this discussion…” he takes a breath, “Sherlock, you can have anything of me, living or dead.”

Sherlock sits upright, and he searches John’s face. John has never been a capable liar. The sensible lines of his face would forbid it. He thinks LIE would be written loudly enough that New Scotland Yard could identify it. However, John detests being vulnerable and open as much as Sherlock detests being bored, normal, or restrained.

Satisfied with the aching truth of things, he approaches carefully, aware that he has been compared several times over the course of his life to a great stalking cat. He takes John’s face between his hands. Those familiar features look small there between Sherlock’s palms, but his cheeks feel warm, and his deep blue eyes blaze with sentiment. John does not break his gaze. Sherlock wonders idly what John sees in his own face, but most of his consciousness is busy filing this away in John’s wing of the mind palace.

He bends and kisses John, gently at first, nearly shutting off all the power in the mind palace when he deepens the kiss. John tastes like tea and surprise.

After forty-five seconds he draws back to check John’s pulse, pupils, breath. Elevated, dilated, positively panting. Good good good. Excellent, really. _Not gay indeed_ Sherlock crows internally. _Bisexual, you clever, enterprising man_. He’d known of course, but it wouldn’t do to not prove his theories. That would be lazy and sloppy and Sherlock is nothing if not thorough.

“Christ,” John breathes. It sounds like benediction, blasphemy, and prayer. He closes his eyes, shielding their depths with thick flaxen strands that curl on his flushed cheeks and flutter distractingly.

Sherlock withdraws, ignoring his own elevated pulse which demands _John, John, John, John_ in syncopated rhythm. He lays back down on the couch, steeples his hands and thinks a moment. John has planned for Sherlock to have all of him, even after life. John is experiencing clear attraction to him. John is the only person who has successfully lived with Sherlock without either attempting or inspiring (at least) one aborted homicide attempt. John is _vulnerable_ with _Sherlock_. These feel less like deductions and more like the natural result of an equation—replicable, obvious. He'll need to compose a new violin piece to capture the thrumming sureness he feels now.

John shakes himself slightly. “So we’re not going to talk about this?”

Sherlock glances back over. “As you are incapable of deducing,” he says pityingly, “I will have to inform you outright that I love you too.”

John freezes. The sharp cessation of breath from his lips is not conducive to continued life.

“Breathe”

“You love me--”

“Repetition, John…”

“--too?” John says, affronted. “When did I say I love you?”

He forgets sometimes that these conversations are happening while John is not in fact here. He has conversations with John regardless of his physical presence or not.

“Somewhere between the time you shot a cabbie and invented new permutations of the term ‘brilliant’ for me. I have also noticed your pulse races when we touch for a period of greater than thirty seconds”

“Oh,” John manages. “Hold on--are we a couple now?”

That is too much stupidity for Sherlock to attempt to contend with, he thinks. Outside the lack of intercourse, they have essentially been a couple for years, as he understands couples. It is entirely outside the scope of his responsibility to explain to John any further if he insists on being this way.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock says into the nearest surveillance camera. “Will you send over the marriage license and tell Mummy? Please don’t give her access to a phone, I don’t want to hear the nattering”

“Hold on! We’re getting married?”

“Obvious,” Sherlock can feel a smile stretching his face. “I need to make an honest man of you. I would not be surprised if Mycroft has had us married for years. Do keep up”

“Mm. Right.” John still looks a little stunned, but he has always been good about following where Sherlock goes.

Sherlock reaches deep into his dressing robe pocket, gently caresses the smooth metal there, and flings it toward John, who catches the ring. It is, of course, sized perfectly. Sherlock selected a white gold with a strip of meteorite. John had a strange fascination with the solar system. Sherlock found in himself an irrational desire to give John the stars.

“How long have you had this?” Three years, eight months, twelve days and approximately 3 hours. Since before flinging himself from St. Bart’s. Since just after they had looked death in the face together with the smell of chlorine in the air.

“Ages, John.” He watches as John strokes the warmed band, and is pleased at the astonished joy dawning in his face as he slips it on the appropriate digit.

“Well all I have to give you at the moment is my skull, but you’ll have to wait, hmm?” John’s voice is soft and husky now.

“An excellent engagement gift, John. Please tell your mitochondria though, that they are to keep you running as long as I need you” Forever, he means. He needs John forever. He will never not need John. John is tea, and crime scene giggles, and drowning in sentiment and a marksman's steady aim. He needs John like he needs air, and while breathing is boring John is not.

“Right,” John says. He sounds a little like he does when strapped with a Semtex vest. Sherlock sympathizes entirely. Falling in this way is terrifying, and Sherlock has been falling ceaselessly for John since before Moriarty forced his hand.

Mustn’t think too much about the lost years. Sherlock pounds on the floor. “Mrs Hudson!” he bellows. One minute and twenty-four seconds later she appears at the door.

“Sherlock, dear—”

“Go tell your infernal neighbor that you’ll have married ones soon too. Tell her too that, yes, I am gay as she has always suspected, and no, I have no interest in her nephew. Finally, you may want to visit your sister for the next week…” He turns his head to look at John. “Week or week and a half John?”

“For what?” John asks, still sounding a bit lost.

“Intensive celebratory fornication.” Sherlock gestures rather lewdly in demonstration.

Mrs. Hudson chortles conspiratorially. It is all very satisfying.

John’s smile then is slightly predatory, and it does things to Sherlock’s lower abdomen that warrant further experimentation. 

“Make it two weeks, Mrs. Hudson. Please excuse Sherlock”

“Oh, boys. Really, it has been such a long time,” she chokes out tearfully before scuttling back downstairs. Despite the illogic, Sherlock finds that he understands her sentiment. It has been a long time, indeed.

There is an echoing silence from John after Mrs. Hudson leaves. The good doctor appears to be experiencing some shock. Best leave him to it. Sherlock closes his eyes and slips away into his mind palace to store every second of today.

He wonders if he could manage to convince Lestrade and/or Mycroft to arrange some delicious homicide as a wedding gift. Mycroft did have so many convenient agents who could manage the task. He wonders, too, whether he could convince John to don the Watson tartan in kilt form. He immediately catalogues these ideas in a rapidly filling hall of wedding plans in his mind palace.

Half an hour later he hears another familiar tread coming up the staircase. He sits upright—he has no interest in greeting Mycroft from a vulnerable position today.

“I hear we have happy news,” comes the familiar simpering drawl “Mummy sends her exuberant felicitations. It did take rather longer than a week, Doctor Watson, but I suppose that you are a trifle slow on the uptick…”

John raises his head. It seems he has finally ordered things in his funny little brain. “Get out.” He tells Mycroft mildly. Sherlock experiences another sharp spike of heated lust at what John’s body language tells him. “My fiancé has secured us two weeks for, what was it, love?”

“Intensive celebratory fornication,” Sherlock supplies.

“Intensive celebratory fornication,” John says brightly, in a timbre that renders the phrase delightfully filthy. Sherlock finds that under the circumstances he does not mind the repetition.

Mycroft clatters the door shut behind him, making an admirable impression of speed as he escapes 221b.


End file.
